Re: Wealth re-distribution : Thu Jan 03, 2019 3:31 pm  

Mild Rover wrote:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42223497

If those definitions don’t work for you, how would you define poverty?

Do you stand by that? How would you define fairness, in this context? What level of equality would you like to see? What proportion of wealth being held by the the top 1% or 5%, nationally or globally, would you deem equitable? What would you regard as being the maximum acceptable Gini co-efficient in the UK?

For me poverty suggests you don't have a roof over your head, you can't cloth yourself, your don't have access to clean water and you can't feed yourself. On that basis how many people do we have in real poverty - very very few.

There needs to be the trickle down how do you make that happen whilst still rewarding the risk and encouraging investment. Interesting that Sweden a country lauds as a model society has the 2nd highest Gini co-efficient of any country!! So if you had a Gini index you would say 65 which is roughly what the world co-efficient is.

How do you re-distribute wealth - increase the minimum wage, introduce a relationship between the CEO salary and that of the average earnings in the firm. Create a tax system that encourages/forces firms to pay CT etc.

You will never stop entrepreneurs making huge piles of cash - how do stop Bill Gates building Microsoft into the firm it is and the riches that come with it. How many on here complain about big business yet use Amazon!!

Re: Wealth re-distribution : Thu Jan 03, 2019 3:40 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

As I mentioned before the human condition is not naturally altruistic - its no surprise that we think about others once we are in comfortable position.

There is plenty of evidence to the contrary, especially amongst children. Selfishness is taught or learned.

Sal Paradise wrote:

If its feed your family or they go hungry so others can eat then I doubt you would be quite so considerate of others?

I am quite content in my family's demonstrations of altruism. Irrespective, we are talking about very rich people making very rich people even richer. Or selfish, greedy people richer.

[Mild Rover]

Re: Wealth re-distribution : Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:43 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

For taxation you need international agreement or the current loopholes will still exist i.e. Apple being based in Ireland, Amazon in Luxembourg etc. whilst ever you have countries with very low rates of CT large companies will migrate their - altruism is not high up on their priority list.

It’d be worth it to see the faces of Rees-Mogg and Farage, if nowt else.

A global approach will likely see requests/demands for measures to reduce global inequality.

Sal Paradise wrote:

For me poverty suggests you don't have a roof over your head, you can't cloth yourself, your don't have access to clean water and you can't feed yourself. On that basis how many people do we have in real poverty - very very few.

There needs to be the trickle down how do you make that happen whilst still rewarding the risk and encouraging investment. Interesting that Sweden a country lauds as a model society has the 2nd highest Gini co-efficient of any country!! So if you had a Gini index you would say 65 which is roughly what the world co-efficient is.

How do you re-distribute wealth - increase the minimum wage, introduce a relationship between the CEO salary and that of the average earnings in the firm. Create a tax system that encourages/forces firms to pay CT etc.

You will never stop entrepreneurs making huge piles of cash - how do stop Bill Gates building Microsoft into the firm it is and the riches that come with it. How many on here complain about big business yet use Amazon!!

To me, that is a definition of extreme poverty.

Sweden has a relatively low Gini co-efficient, and certainly not the second highest in the world! The UK’s, while higher than Sweden, is lower than most.

Re: Wealth re-distribution : Thu Jan 03, 2019 6:15 pm  

Mild Rover wrote:

It’d be worth it to see the faces of Rees-Mogg and Farage, if nowt else.

A global approach will likely see requests/demands for measures to reduce global inequality.

To me, that is a definition of extreme poverty.

Sweden has a relatively low Gini co-efficient, and certainly not the second highest in the world! The UK’s, while higher than Sweden, is lower than most.

What is you definition of poverty?

Re: Wealth re-distribution : Thu Jan 03, 2019 6:22 pm  

tigertot wrote:

There is plenty of evidence to the contrary, especially amongst children. Selfishness is taught or learned.

I am quite content in my family's demonstrations of altruism. Irrespective, we are talking about very rich people making very rich people even richer. Or selfish, greedy people richer.

If you believe Maslow - survival + security are basic needs in built in humans - thinking about others is well up the scale once you have achieved stages 1 & 2.

You may well be altruistic now because you will not be in poverty whatever your description of that is. Bill Gates is currently in the process of divesting a large chunk of his fortune - unfortunately he is acquiring it quicker than he gives it away. I think you would be very surprised at how much the very wealthy give away to causes they believe in.

[Mild Rover]

Re: Wealth re-distribution : Thu Jan 03, 2019 9:00 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote: What is you definition of poverty? In terms of relative of poverty, I think there’s a case for using mean rather than median values, and including wealth as well as income. I don’t have the expertise to come up with a technical definition though. In terms of what life is like, in the UK something like this seems about right to me, on a quick read: http://www.poverty.ac.uk/pse-research/w ... nk-we-need http://www.poverty.ac.uk/pse-research/g ... -1983-2012

Sal Paradise wrote: What is you definition of poverty? In terms of relative of poverty, I think there’s a case for using mean rather than median values, and including wealth as well as income. I don’t have the expertise to come up with a technical definition though. In terms of what life is like, in the UK something like this seems about right to me, on a quick read: http://www.poverty.ac.uk/pse-research/w ... nk-we-need http://www.poverty.ac.uk/pse-research/g ... -1983-2012

Re: Wealth re-distribution : Fri Jan 04, 2019 7:37 am  

[quote="Sal Paradise"

You will never stop entrepreneurs making huge piles of cash - how do stop Bill Gates building Microsoft into the firm it is and the riches that come with it. How many on here complain about big business yet use Amazon!![/quote]


And here is the nub of the issue.
Striking a balance to allow entrepreneurs to fulfil their potential but not allowing them to escape their tax responsibilities, which of coures applies to Amazon as well.

Regardless of how bright someone is or how innovative their products may be, is it right that someone should earn £1000's per hour, while paying another person £9.00 per hour ?? and having to subsidise them with "handouts", which are in place to allow the top earners to pay their staff less money ??

If ALL full time employees were paid a proper living wage, there would be far less need for benefits to be paid out but, there would be issues around inflation and our (the UK's) competitiveness overseas.

Re: Wealth re-distribution : Fri Jan 04, 2019 8:35 am  

Happy Fat Cat Friday, everyone. Keep grafting. https://news.sky.com/story/fat-cat-frid ... y-11598353

Happy Fat Cat Friday, everyone. Keep grafting. https://news.sky.com/story/fat-cat-frid ... y-11598353

Re: Wealth re-distribution : Fri Jan 04, 2019 9:47 am  

wrencat1873 wrote:

And here is the nub of the issue.
Striking a balance to allow entrepreneurs to fulfil their potential but not allowing them to escape their tax responsibilities, which of coures applies to Amazon as well.

Regardless of how bright someone is or how innovative their products may be, is it right that someone should earn £1000's per hour, while paying another person £9.00 per hour ?? and having to subsidise them with "handouts", which are in place to allow the top earners to pay their staff less money ??

If ALL full time employees were paid a proper living wage, there would be far less need for benefits to be paid out but, there would be issues around inflation and our (the UK's) competitiveness overseas.

The issue about a living wage is an interesting one - its then a balance between staff pay and profits. Shareholders - predominantly pension funds - want share price growth and dividends if the minimum wage is increased at say Sainsburys/Asda either profits fall and everyone's pension suffers, unlikely or prices increase so are the lower paid going to be any better off?

What price do you place on risk and innovation - if through their hard work, risk taking and skill levels they build a business that is very profitable and employs hundreds of people what should they earn? These are people making the critical decisions/managing the risk/raising the finance in that business - are you suggesting a cap on earnings?

Re: Wealth re-distribution : Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:59 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

What price do you place on risk and innovation - if through their hard work, risk taking and skill levels they build a business that is very profitable and employs hundreds of people what should they earn? These are people making the critical decisions/managing the risk/raising the finance in that business - are you suggesting a cap on earnings?

Absolutely no-one is saying there shouldn't be a reward for risk (as long as the counter to that is that the risk taker pays the price of failure, not the public). Plenty of successful & 'happier' countries - Sweden, Germany, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Austria - manage to have a much lower gap between low/high earnings.